n a few short days, Raven had become accustomed to journeying to the Old Town in Dr Simpson’s carriage, a luxury which spared him from (or perhaps merely deferred) the anxiety besetting him now. His duties as Simpson’s apprentice also involved assisting with the professor’s lectures at the university, and on this occasion he was having to make his way there in advance, in order to prepare a practical demonstration while the doctor attended a case out in Balerno.
His fear was all the more unsettling for being an unfamiliar sensation in entirely familiar surroundings. These streets had been his home for almost seven years: he well knew their dangers but that was not the same as being afraid. He had never felt scared here before.
Raven had first come here at the age of thirteen, when he was enrolled in George Heriot’s, a school ‘for poor fatherless boys’. It was an educational opportunity that would previously have been far beyond his means, an unforeseen consolation accruing from the tragedy that had otherwise so reduced his family’s circumstances. The significance was not lost on Raven that dying was the most substantial contribution his father ever made towards providing him with a future.
He recalled how tentative his early ventures out to the surrounding neighbourhood had been, haunted by the stories the older boys told to frighten their juniors. But Raven had always been drawn to explore that which he feared, not to mention that which might seem forbidden. By the time he was a student at the university (the requisite fees extracted with difficulty from and following prolonged negotiation with his parsimonious uncle) he felt like a native of the Old Town, if not entirely at home there.
Up ahead, the sanctuary of the university’s courtyard beckoned him in the murk. He felt he would be safe within its walls, particularly as it was daylight; or daytime, at least. The whole city remained shrouded in a choking fog that refused to lift though it was already after noon.
From the moment he crossed the North Bridge, he had been looking over his shoulder for the Weasel and Gargantua, though together with Peg, these were the only associates of Flint that he even knew to be on the lookout for. Gargantua at least he should be able to see coming, perhaps the most conspicuous creature in Edinburgh. What gruesome disorder had blighted the fellow? Given the nature of their only encounter, Raven was disinclined to be sympathetic towards the monster’s plight, but as a medical man he recognised that the man was surely afflicted. He wasn’t merely large: parts of him had kept growing when they ought to have stopped, and that didn’t augur well for his prospects. Unfortunately he was unlikely to die soon enough to save Raven, and even then Flint would not be short of a replacement.
He had tried to steady himself by considering his situation rationally. It had only been a matter of days since the Weasel braced him: surely they wouldn’t expect his financial situation to have sufficiently improved as to be able to redeem the debt? But then he realised that making rational assumptions was a dangerous mistake. He had to stop thinking of them as reasonable people. They were demanding he got them their money by any means necessary, under the threat of mutilation. It wouldn’t stop with an eye, either.
Meanwhile, the longer he went without seeing them, the more they would expect him to pay when they caught up to him again.
The archway to the courtyard was mere yards away, and Raven’s stride grew apace the closer he got. His view was fixed upon it, eyes dead ahead, when he heard someone call his name.
A shudder ran through him. More than a shudder, for a shudder passes quickly. It was a tremor, accompanied by the threat of tears and a sharp twinge in his cheek as though he could feel the slice of Weasel’s blade again. It happened every time he was startled, whether by a sudden noise or a phantom in the dark as he waited for sleep. It had even happened at dinner two nights ago, when Simpson raised a carving knife and the gleam of the blade caught his eye.
He came close to breaking into a sprint, before the voice resumed and he was able to recognise it.
‘Slow down, man. You’re walking like the wolves are at your back.’
It was Henry, jogging to catch up, and Raven was able to disguise his relief as pleasure.
‘We New Town residents walk as quickly as we can through the poorer districts, don’t you know.’
‘I don’t doubt it. How are you finding the estimable Professor Simpson and his household?’
‘I’m not sure what I expected, but I can say that it wasn’t what I found. It’s a menagerie, Henry. Dogs, children, chaotic clinics. I may need some time to adjust.’
‘And what of colleagues?’
‘There is a Dr George Keith, who lives nearby. He is a decent sort. And there is a James Duncan, who if he was made of chocolate would surely eat himself, were his appetites not so abstemious.’
‘James Duncan? I think I may have encountered him. Studied here, and at Aberdeen before that? A prodigiously young graduate?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Yes. Gifted of mind but an altogether odd creature. Set upon an ostensibly humanitarian undertaking and yet giving off as much warmth as a dying penguin’s last fart.’
‘Sadly not unique among our peers. Impeccable in his conduct but a singularly joyless soul.’
‘Never trust a man who has no apparent vices. The concealed ones are apt to be disgusting. And what of the staff at Queen Street? Any pretty housemaids to delight your eye?’
The image of Sarah leapt unbidden into his head, but whether she delighted his eye was moot, because he could not picture her without reliving the incident at his first clinic. The very thought of her made Raven feel awkward and embarrassed. For all his years of diligent study, a mere girl had been able to make him feel like he had learned nothing of practical worth. That she was worldly and he a schoolboy.
‘Unfortunately not,’ he said, hoping that Henry read nothing in his expression that encouraged him to press the subject.
Henry’s scrutinising eye was upon him, but fortunately focused on something more superficial.
‘Your swelling is going down nicely,’ he remarked, words that put Sarah right back into Raven’s mind. He had to get off the subject.
‘Evidence of a deft hand,’ he said. ‘So what business occupies those deft hands today?’
Henry’s gaze returned to the courtyard widening before them, students traversing the flagstones in all directions, flitting in and out of vision like ghosts in this stubborn fog.
‘I am in search of a butcher,’ he replied.
‘Then I may be able to assist, now that I am widening my circle of acquaintance. Mrs Lyndsay, the Simpsons’ cook, buys her meat from Hardie’s, on Cockburn Street. He would have to be a fine butcher, as her standards are exacting.’
‘I am not looking for a fine butcher. I am looking for an unconscionable one.’
Henry had a singularity about his expression, his thoughts finely focused.
‘You recall that death from peritonitis that was so vexing Professor Syme? When we carried out the post-mortem we discovered that her uterus had been perforated, as had a loop of small intestine.’
‘A butcher indeed,’ Raven said.
‘She wasn’t the last, either. We’ve had another case since, also fatal. Similar injuries.’
‘Have the authorities been informed?’
‘Yes, but they won’t act. No one is going to admit that they know anything about it, and more importantly it hasn’t affected the right class of people. You know how it is. There’s no way of knowing for sure it’s the same culprit, but I fear somebody has set up to trade.’
‘An amateur?’ Raven asked.
‘Impossible to be sure. It’s certainly not the worst I’ve seen in my time.’
‘When it comes to this, nobody truly knows what they’re doing,’ Raven stated. ‘But nonetheless, a level of medical knowledge is necessary to even know where to begin.’
‘I wouldn’t speak those words too loudly, my friend, and nor would I wish to be the first to suggest adding it to the curriculum. But you speak the truth. It is disappointing to think of someone offering what they know to be literally a stab in the dark, butchering women in their greed for fast cash.’
Raven thought of Weasel’s blade and understood how quickly one’s ethics might be abandoned given a powerful enough motivation.
‘We can only hope that his technique improves quickly,’ he suggested. ‘Else these two won’t be his last victims.’
‘Can we say for certain it is a he?’ Henry asked.
‘I suppose not,’ Raven admitted. ‘There are always unscrupulous midwives ready with a sharp knitting needle if the price is right, and I have heard it suggested that women feel easier about approaching someone of their own sex when soliciting such illicit services.’
‘Not merely for illicit services,’ Henry replied. ‘I have heard tell that there is a French midwife working in the city, eagerly sought after by ladies who would rather not be treated by a man.’
Raven thought of the needless encumbrance of the bedsheets that prevented him and Dr Simpson seeing what they were doing. He wondered if the preservation of modesty was less of an issue when the practitioner was female.
‘French, you say?’
‘A graduate of the Hôtel Dieu, no less, if the accounts are to be believed.’
‘Then you don’t need to worry about her being this butcher,’ Raven said. ‘A graduate of the Hôtel Dieu would know well enough what she was about.’
‘Then perhaps it’s not I who ought to worry about her. You’re the one she’s competing with.’
‘I’ll start worrying when they start training women to be doctors.’
Henry laughed.
‘So who were they?’ Raven asked. ‘The victims?’
‘One of them was a tavern maid, the other a prostitute.’
Another deid hoor, Raven thought.
‘We don’t get fine ladies washing up at the Infirmary,’ Henry went on. ‘The quality can afford a home visit from the likes of Dr Simpson.’
‘I don’t believe this is a service that he offers,’ Raven said, though it struck him that he had no means of knowing.
‘No, and nor was that what I was suggesting. Though I sometimes wonder what they do over in the New Town when there is an inconvenient issue.’
‘They simply have the babies,’ Raven supposed, thinking of the household staff commanded by Mrs Simpson, reputedly modest by some standards. ‘Then pass them off to nurses and nannies. It is always different when there is money. These young women must resort to desperate measures because they feel they have no alternative.’
Henry nodded solemnly, slowing his stride as they reached the entrance where their routes would diverge.
‘More desperate than anyone might believe,’ he said ruefully. ‘I’m told an infant’s leg was found in a gutter by a scavenger rooting in an alley near the Royal Exchange. The authorities are looking into that one, at least.’
As they parted ways, Raven was left with a profound sense of sadness over the fates of these women, though he had not known them, nor even seen them. He knew that it was down to a sense of guilt over Evie, whose death scene he had run from like he had something to hide.
Raven wondered what he might have missed. He had been too startled by the discovery that she was dead and the danger of being found in there with the body that he hadn’t looked properly – hadn’t seen things he might otherwise have noticed?
Though Flint’s men were on the prowl, he knew he had no choice. He would have to go back.